Retailers have a reason to be concerned about "showrooming" after all.

According to a post from Retail Customer Experience, the practice of shoppers using brick-and-mortar retailers as a showroom for a cheaper purchase online is prevalent, with nearly half (46 percent) of respondents admitting they checked out a product offline before buying the item online.

The showrooming phenomenon could actually be a boon to mobile payments. Location-based features like those designed into PayPal's digital wallet give merchants the ability to offer discounts to in-store shoppers to keep them from buying online.

That's a smart strategy since offline/online purchase decisions are usually made because of price. The report said 87 percent of respondents shopped online because it was cheaper.

The study from market research firm ClickIQ Inc found 48 percent of those who made purchases online after researching the product offline made those purchases at Amazon. Leading retailers for research were Walmart at 41 percent and Target at 25 percent.

For more stories like this, visit the Retail research center.